By John McCrank
NEW YORK, Feb 21 (Reuters) - George Levine, a pioneer in the electrification of the financial markets who helped bring real-time market data to Wall Street early in his 50-year career, died on Feb. 13 of natural causes at the age of 88, a family friend confirmed on Tuesday.
Levine joined Scantlin Electronics, which electronically stored and retrieved stock market information, in 1963, a time when most people had to rely on newspapers to check stock prices on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company changed its name in the 1970s to Quotron, the name of a workplace terminal that displayed stock bids, offers and last sale prices on electronic screens instead of ticker tape.
Quotron terminals were ubiquitous in the financial services industry, making cameos in Oliver Stone's 1987 film "Wall Street," and later in Martin Scorsese's 2013 throwback "Wolf of Wall Street."
Levine, who ran sales and marketing, became the face of the company and was known as "Mr. Quotron."
"Back in the day starting from the mid-1970's, there wasn't a firm that didn't know him," said Ken Doody, head of content development at Thomson Reuters and a former colleague of Levine.
Levine stayed with Quotron when it was bought by Citigroup Inc (NYSE:C) C.N forerunner Citicorp in 1986 for $680 million, and then when it was taken over by what is now Thomson Reuters Corp TRI.TO , in 1994.
Levine retired from Thomson Reuters, the parent of Reuters News, in 2013.
A funeral service was held for Levine in Los Angeles on Friday and a memorial service is being planned for New York in the near future, said Sharon Lavin, a friend of Levine's family who confirmed his death.